Monday, 3 October 2016

God Disease interview

GOD DISEASE interview

This band is a killer combo from Finland (damn, another after Galvanizer, band from Suomi I show here!!). You have to check my two reviews, which I've written for this website and support GOD DISEASE. Soon they should do an album for F.D.A., and I am already certain that it will be a shredder!

Greetings. I’m so glad to have a chance to
speak to you and ask some questions. Hope you’re OK there in fuckin
Finlandia??!!! Hahah!

Hello Marcin! This is Ilkka speaking! I´m the
vocalist. All good in the land of thousand lakes. Thanks for the opportunity to
tell you some Tales From… Hah! Seriously though things are quite well. Just
yesterday we played the best show in our history so far with Sepulchral Curse
and Cryptic Brood in Helsinki! Set included one completely new song. People
seemed to like it. Maybe it´s going to be on the album. All I need is winter now and things would be
perfect.

I wanna really start from the end… because I
wrote in my review that I wanna see God Disease signed to good death metal
label. And it happened! You just signed a contract with F.D.A. Rekotz! Great, I
like this label a lot and they were among those, which I hoped will be
interested in God Disease. Tell me, how did it then happened that you ended up
on this label?

The traditional way. We were searching a label
and I sent some “Rebirth Of Horror” CDs to labels around the world. We had
talked about that FDA would be THE label we want to be on. We thought that
maybe they won´t take us, since they don´t have much of Finnish bands on their
roster. But then one summer evening at my cabin (I was in Sauna and drinking
craft beer...) I got a message from Rico that he is interested of us and sometime
later we signed to FDA. Still, signing to a label guarantees nothing. We still
need to deliver a great album and a solid live performance.

F.D.A. Rekotz is known for their great roster
of old school death metal, they released many young bands that play this great
music. Do you have some favourites among them? I personally love such Skeletal
Remains, Chapel of Disease, Slaughterday, Obscure Infinity and Derogatory. And
many more!

Chapel Of Disease and Skeletal Remains are my
favourites. Slaughterday is damn great too and Lifeless, Endseeker, Considered
Dead, Master, Nerlich and Revolting. All these are on my player.

So, what plans do you have now, when the
contract is signed? Obviously I am hoping to see an album out rather sooner
than later, so the question is what and when haha! And vinyl release will be
essential!

Album is
under work right now, but it´s going to be some time until it sees
daylight. We have two shows remaining this year, both in Finland. Other in Pori
with black metal acts Author and Kalmankantaja at least and other in Helsinki
with Denominate and our label mates Refusal. After these we will put our heads
down and concentrate on the album. We want to make it the best we can, since
you get to do your debut album just once. I would love to see some God Disease
vinyls too and maybe...

Your last recording is the fantastic EP
“Rebirth of Horror”. You know my opinion on this excellent music, I truly loved
it. Tell me though how was the feedback from other maniacs? This EP was self
released, so I wonder how many copies did you manage to spread around?

We have sold about a 100 copies of 200 as a CD
and almost other 100 as a tape. It seems that people have liked it. So far I
have not heard much negative of it. It feels weird, since when we recorded it I
was thinking that this is not good enough, we can´t release this, but my band
mates calmed me down and here we are. After the release, I started to like it
too and I like performing all the songs live. I set the standards high for us
and especially myself on this EP since it was first release with the new
guitarists and I wanted it to be the best so far. And it is.

I also saw a cassette version, released by
Lycanthropic Chants. I am really astonished to see cassettes available and
labels that only do tapes. How do you feel about it? Are we so nostalgic that
even this smallest and most breakable format is in our interest haha? Obviously
some may call it another fashion thing, but who cares. I always liked to see a
proper cassette demo or cassette EP, it has the right underground, traditional
feeling.

The most inconvenient format, haha. I think
Lycanthropic Chants is going to do vinyl also, but they just started so give
them time. Personally I do buy tapes, but only those releases that come only in
that format. I got like 7 tapes on my collection so far. I have no way to
listen to them at the moment though… haha. I agree with you on the underground
feeling. Tape trading is something I never did, I was too young, but how people
talk about it, I can understand why there´s tape releases this day too. It´s
crazy but the “Rebirth Of Horror” tape release grew our reputation more than
any other release so far, so thanks to Steffen Brandes from Lycanthropic Chants
and Cryptic Brood for that! And it´s almost sold out! Our first EP came out as
a tape also. 100 copies was sold in few months and repressing was sold fast
too. I guess that for some, tape is still king. Tape is somewhat obscure format
these days, but I came across some label that was releasing music on a
diskette! Probably like half a song on one diskette… Waiting for minidisc to
return… hahaha.

Diskette haha! Speaking of the latest EP, I
love that you can write such different songs like “Catacombs” on one hand and
then “Deeper Into Flames”, which is a beast!!! How much is such diversity
important to you, when writing new material? Obviously such aspects as having
memorable riffs, some good melodies and more importantly a proper dark, gloomy
atmosphere are something that all your tracks need to have?!

I think it´s good to have some diversity on
your songs so it won´t get boring to listen on album or live, and yes, it would
not be a God Disease song if it would not have dark and gloomy atmosphere. I
haven´t written any music since “Abyss Cathedral” EP and I don´t even have to.
Other guys are so productive and much better composers than I am. I concentrate
on the lyrics. God Disease songs take their form in rehearsals. Someone brings
more or less ready song structure and we play it out many times and the song
forms through trial and error. We tend to do things as a band so it takes time
to make one God Disease song. Speaking of “Deeper Into Flames”, it really
shares opinions. Some think it´s really good and evil track and some say that
it´s made just to make a long song and it gets boring. Well. It was not made
just to make a long song. I don´t see why we would do that.

So, which of these classic doom / death metal
bands mean the most to you? And which do you think influence your style the
most? I suppose it could equally be the good old Paradise Lost as well as the
Swedish scene (Eternal Darkness for example) and so on. But doom death metal is
in quite great health these days and also many new bands kill with their sound,
like Hooded Menace, Encoffination or Uncoffined. Any favourites among them?

I started with bands like My Dying Bride,
Swallow The Sun and old Katatonia. Paradise Lost soon followed and Hooded
Menace has been in my life since their first full-length. I also like a lot of
the early Anathema stuff and of course because I´m Finnish, Amorphis’ death
metal era records play a huge part in my life. I used to listen to the “Tales
From The Thousand Lakes” over and over again and “Black Winter Day” had the
biggest impact on me back in the day. Encoffination is something I found just
few months ago and they are unbelievably dark! Got to love them. Then there´s
Solothus of these newer Finnish bands. Their new album is absolutely fantastic.

Oh yeah, I still need to find new Solothus,
cheers for reminding me about that haha! I seriously think that Paradise Lost’s
“Beneath Broken Earth” belongs to the best, if not the best, doom death metal
tracks that were written recently. I am shocked they managed to compose
something so heavy and dark! What do you think of this song?

When I first heard it, I was almost shitting my
pants. Paradise Lost finally sounded like they were supposed to sound! I think
this song and the whole album is pure gold! It´s great to see that those guys
finally realized that death metal is what they were meant to do. I had my hopes
high, when Vallenfyre released their first album and when Nick Holmes joined
Bloodbath, that some of these death metal influences would flow back to
Paradise Lost too and now we have it!

Going back to your beginning, I saw on Metal
Archives that God Disease split up in 2013 and then reformed. Supposedly you
even did one demo before the split up. Tell me more on that demo, on the
circumstances, which led to band’s end of existence and then a quick rebirth.
Was the line up still the same in both periods?

That demo… people sometimes ask if we could send them the
tracks or something. The truth is that I deleted them from existence long ago.
It was a horrific display of guys who did not know shit and were too eager
forming a band that was not even a band back then. Sample drums and the worst
plastic guitar sound you can imagine. Our beginning was the hardest possible.
At first we did not find players at all. Then we did not find players who
wanted to play death metal. This was back in 2010 when death metal was not a
fashionable choice and everyone wanted to play some viking shit. We actually
had one “viking” song with the very first line up. Never recorded anything with
that line up. At this point we “broke up” since we had started another band
with different guys and different name and then God Disease died for a moment.
Then we changed the other bands name to God Disease… hahaha. The demo was made
with this “other” band and released under God Disease name, unfortunately. Only
one who´s left from the day one with me is our bassist Henry. We actually had
“band practices” with just the two of us. There´s been three drummers and about
11 guitar players in the band´s history… Some left themselves, some needed to
be booted. Things started to work out once Mika, our current drummer joined the
band. Soon after that Matias Autio joined and with him we did the first proper
releases “Abyss Cathedral” and “Doom Howler” EPs. He then went on to join
Barathrum and we first tried to live with that but soon discovered it
impossible and when Matias left we were without a guitar player for like six
months. We still played one show with replacement guitarist. Matias rejoined to
play few gigs with us and we started talking about new material but eventually
things fell apart again. This time I told Henry that this is it. The band is
over. No more. Week after that we had our first practice with our current
guitar players Ville and Jesse. It´s funny when you think of it. You try your
hardest to find some proper people and you fail to find them. You quit
searching and they find you. With this line up we did “Rebirth Of Horror”, yes,
the title represents the rebirth of God Disease and with this line up we shall
keep going until the grave calls. May this be a lesson to anyone who dreams of
forming a band. It requires a lot of hard work and determination to reach even
a level where you can have a practice with full line up. Prepare to lose some
“friends.”

It doesn’t need a smart person to understand
the meaning of your band’s name. it surely is a good moniker and one, which
tells a lot about your views on religion. And we talk about all religion I
suppose, not just Catholic, especially as the real threat comes from Islam
these days. I wonder though how much room do you have for anti-religious
lyrics, especially if it feels like a lot of them is about fuckin horror haha?!

All religions should be destroyed. Finland is
actually not a catholic country or very religious country. Most of the people
are Lutheran. Yet still our leaders are hardcore Jesus freaks and christianity
has showed it´s ugly face more and more, since the refugees started to flood
in. I won´t write any anti-Islam lyrics since people would purposefully get
offended and take them as racism and neo-nazism these days. I don´t need that
shit in my life or that stamp on my forehead and since Bolt Thrower and Hail Of
Bullets are taking all the war themes, what can I do than horror themed lyrics
then? hahahah. We have just one song
with religion theme, at least where religion would be the main subject. “Crush
The Believer”. I have used some christian darkness in my lyrics and identified
God as an enemy in some, though. I have some unused “fuck religion” lyrics but
yes, horror has been more inspiring lately. Speaking of horror. Penny Dreadful,
the TV show, really speaks to me… I don´t like much of horror movies like Evil
Dead or any other zombie themed movie or TV show, I know that now that I said
it I lost some Death Metal Maniac points hahaha. I like my horror more on a
spiritual level. Demons and ghosts, mental illness and mysticism.

Yes, you just lost your chance to get famous on
old school death metal scene, they will let zombies to eat you now haha! “Rebirth
of Horror” was killer, but I also really liked the compilation of “Doom Howler
/ Abyss Cathedral” EPs. This CD was released by South from Here Records from
France. With songs like “Abyss Cathedral”, “Doom Howler”, “Sepulchral Swamp”
it’s a fantastic material, I am quite sad though that it didn’t maybe catch
enough attention. You didn’t carry on working with this label, I didn’t even
see them releasing anything after “Doom Howler…”.

I am still talking with Vincent from South From
Here every now and then. We were supposed to do a split sometime ago but
suitable band was not found. I hope he´s still going to release something
because he did such a good work with us. What comes to the attention… I don´t
know. I sent it to many places and South From Here sent it to many places to be
reviewed and listened, but it was widely overlooked. I don´t know why, but I
don´t care. We have our sights to what´s coming. The compilation is still
available from South From Here store. Go there if you don´t have it.

All your EPs were first released as digital
files. Well, my tolerance for such “releases” is quite low, but it doesn’t
matter. Do you think that a new band can exist these days without strong
promotional help from such websites like bandcamp, youtube or facebook?

New bands can exist without internet, but then
you have to have done something so fucking kvlt shit that it spreads like a
plague without internet… I have never bought digital files myself and never
will. I don´t have spotify and never will. It´s important to me that we have a
physical version available. Facebook surely is an important tool of the trade
nowadays. I would have to do huge adjustments on my own promotional work for
God Disease if I would not have it. Youtube… Well… Most of the God Disease
material there is not uploaded by us. But it´s helpful of course. Bandcamp is
quite artist friendly. I think it´s a good platform for new bands to showcase
their talent.

Or complete lack of it haha! How was your time
at Helsinki Death Fest? Damn, it must have been a cool event! How do you like
such gathering of underground bands and how was this particular small fest?

It was actually arranged by me and my friends.
It was very nice day. We got some rare acts like Corpse Molester Cult and
Oksennus. Then there was fucking Instant and Galvanizer, the future of Finnish
death metal scene. The most special thing was that Atretic Intestine played
their last show ever there! Our idea was to bring some bands together that
don´t play live that much and have a day full of death. Everything went well and
we are planning another event for 2017. For some atmosphere pictures, check out
Helsinki Death Fest FB page! There will also be some video of the whole fest
sometime soon.

OK, let’s finish here. Time for some beers! But
promise me that I won’t have to wait long for new music from God Disease haha!

I promise that we´ll make it worth the wait!
hahaha. Thanks for this interview! By the way, I noticed you were involved in
the third coming of Compilation Of Death! Nice one! Cheers and kippis! (Yes, I
was involved a bit In COD#3. Hope that my laziness will not prevail and I will
catch up with material for the issue #4 also! Hails!)